Anduril Industries, a U.S. company, has promised to deliver hardware and software that will usher in a new era of autonomous warfare with the speed that only a startup can offer…But…As the U.S. Navy was attempting to launch 30 drone boats in May 2025, the boats rejected their inputs and automatically idled, making them “dead” in the water. The botched experiment quickly became a potential hazard to other vessels in the exercise. Military personnel scrambled overnight to clean up the mess, towing the boats to shore until 9 a.m. the next day. 

The drone boats were relying on autonomy software called Lattice made Anduril Industries. The Navy said the exercise was handled safely, but the incident alarmed Navy personnel, who said in a routine follow-up report that company representatives had misguided the military. In comments that were unusual for such a report, which was viewed by The Wall Street Journal, four sailors warned of “continuous operational security violations, safety violations, and contracting performer misguidances (Anduril Industries).” If the software configuration wasn’t immediately corrected and vetted, they wrote, there would be “extreme risk to force and potential for loss of life.”

Excerpt from Shelby Holliday et al., ‘We Do Fail … a Lot’: Defense Startup Anduril Hits Setbacks With Weapons Tech, WSJ, Nov. 27, 2025